Web hosts; who are you using?

[McLaren]

So, after constantly putting it off, I am finally taking the leap towards creating my own website for my photography. But, I'm having some trouble finding a good host.

As some of you obviously know, trying to find, "Best Web Hosts" in Google just leads to multiple sites listing the same Top10 in different orders. And while some of these sites do have CNet Awards amongst others, they don't all seem to have what I'm looking for.

With that said, I'd like to know what hosts you guys are using for your own websites, regardless of what you use them for. The only thing I require is a host that has some basic editing software until a friend & I can really dig into HTML coding, but other than that, please share.

 

[WallRunner]

Personally I go with GoDaddy, very reliable servers and from what I've seen the customer support team knows what they're doing. In a year and a half of host I've only had a few hours where the site was slow that it was their fault (as opposed to being my own ), aswell as a great backend interface for managing databases, FTP access and such.

If you're just starting out, however, I'd suggest getting a free site from places like google pages, and messing around with it until you learn HTML, CSS and the like. At worst it could serve as a decent looking temp home (get the free hosting and buy the domain name as a redirect), until you get well versed enough in web design to make your own page.
(Godaddy also has a "Website Tonight" feature that's similar to Google Pages and includes hosting with a website builder if you want to go that route)

Or, once you get hosting, another option is finding a free HTML+CSS template and building off of it, changing the design and such to fit your liking.
Or, installing web applications like Wordpress or Joomla!, which make creating a website fairly easy (I personally use Wordpress for MRG, due to the need to blog and the wide range of themes and plugins, aswell as user interactivity)

In web design you want something that looks better, and is more user friendly, and if you don't have the skills to design a website from the ground up it's much better to use resources already available than to attempt to make the site yourself, and coming out with something that looks like it was from 1996.

A personal example of mine is comparing the Rich, User-Friendly, interactive workings of MRG to another NASCAR designs site, that was made with a default template in dreamweaver, has LARGE OBNOXIOUS TEXT that has to be manually updated (Wordpress has a complete backend for making posts, editing pages and such), has Crudely scaled down images and takes 20 seconds to scroll down and see all the info, with a big "FORUM IS HERE" text link at the top and mishmashed designs. (nothing is universal, there's 3 different logos, the background has changed styles and the text is 5 different colors)

From,
Chris.

 

[Jondot]

As some of you obviously know, trying to find, "Best Web Hosts" in Google just leads to multiple sites listing the same Top10 in different orders.

...only some of which you can actually trust to be remotely impartial.

It's a tricky thing, to be honest - you'll hear good and bad about everyone generally. If they're big and cheap they'll probably be overselling, and if they're small and cheap they'll probably have 1 employee who runs it on the side of working at Burger King. I've tended to go with the latter and (unsurprisingly) they tend to sort of forget the site exists.

A few simple rules to go off:

If you see the word 'unlimited', run away.
It's not unlimited. Nothing is. There will be a 'fair use policy' tucked away somewhere and the host will probably be particularly rapid in kicking you off their servers should your bandwidth stray over the limit. Or worse still, very happy to send you a horrific fine instead.

If it seems too good to be true, run away.
Something's gotta give, be it service or customer support. Also be aware of companies like FatCow, who operate a lot like double glazing salesmen - go to ask them a question through their chat window and they'll have started offering you unfeasibly large discounts before you can say 'hello'.

Don't ever bundle your domain name with the hosting.
You've no idea how much they'll charge you to renew the domain, and there's nothing to stop them simply buying it up to prevent you from doing so yourself. Might take you 5 more minutes configuring the domain yourself, but it's soooo much safer.

Cross 'site builder' off your list of requirements.
It will be catastrophically dreadful. There are far better (free) software solutions around for blogging, portfolio management etc. There's a number of people's portfolios lurking around on here - take a look and see what they're running.

What you want your host to provide:
CPanel (controls everything)
A few MySQL databases (you'll only need a handful, if that)
A POP mailbox or two (email account, in other words)
FTP Access (how you'll upload your raw files)
Period. Everything else is just unneeded.



Oh and to answer the original question, I'm with an unfeasibly cheap company called JSHosts. Though they've been excellent - I think the poor guy works 24/7. Having said that, I haven't been monitoring the uptime and my site is basically a page with 3 images stuck on it that gets visited (at most) once a month.

 

[Spock]

I use 2 different hosts for my own personal site, and my gaming clans website

https://www.host-unlimited.com/
I use these guys for my own site, http://www.zerosubstance.net/ which they have 99.9% up-time from what I have seen, only downtime I have come across is when they migrated from their old cPanel system to a clustered cloud like hosting system.
But they aren't as cheap now as when I first signed up with them. $10 a month for 20gb usage 2gb disk space, so roughly $120 a year for that, although I was grandfathered into this new system and drop only $39 a year for it.

For my gaming clans site I go with ByetHost, http://byethost.com/
They have pretty cheap plans from about $2.99 a month, 5~gb disk space, 250gb transfer, which was more than enough to host custom decals for our Counter-Strike: Source server, and running forums. Although I now have a VPS server from them for about $25 every 3 months so I can run stuff like HLStatsX and a backup MySQL server for my Borderlands DB.
Sorry I can't link my gaming clans site, as we are a bit adult oriented in nature.

 

[Syntax error]

I've been using Bluehost for about 2 years now. I find their service excellent. Never experienced any issues or down time yet.

 

[NLxAROSA]

For my photos, I have a Flickr account. For all the other stuff, I rent a dedicated server at Leaseweb. I have several domains and applications running on that one. If you want to post/blog about your pictures and know nothing about tech at all, try getting Wordpress with your host, it's marvellous.

 

[nick09]

Yeah installing blog software might be the best option for you.

 

[Joey D]

We use GoDaddy for our store's website, it works great and we've never had an issue with it. It's pretty cheap too.

 

[McLaren]

I've been using Bluehost for about 2 years now. I find their service excellent. Never experienced any issues or down time yet.

I considered these guys in the past as they had an excellent tutorial on website building with them.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. Let the research begin.

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

I have been using http://www.mercantec.com/ for about 5-6 years for my side business. I have WAY more space than I need and its about $8.00 a month.